


My life is a cliche romantic novel and I don't even care

by An_Abundance_of_Soph



Series: Meeting Colby Granger [2]
Category: Numb3rs
Genre: F/M, father/daughter fight, overprotective dad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-07
Updated: 2015-01-07
Packaged: 2018-03-06 12:46:13
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,006
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3135002
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/An_Abundance_of_Soph/pseuds/An_Abundance_of_Soph
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If Don had a daughter while he was still playing baseball and then she met Colby Granger and he wished he'd never stopped playing baseball.</p>
            </blockquote>





	My life is a cliche romantic novel and I don't even care

**Author's Note:**

> In my writing of my Hayley/Colby fic, You Save Me Every Day, I scrapped a few different startings before i found the right one, but i still really liked some of the ideas I came up with so this series is a collection of oneshots of how their relationship could have started.

I was 18 when I first met Colby. He was 30 and had just started working with my father. This was information neither of us knew until weeks after we met.  
My dad, Don Eppes, was 20 when I was born and at the time he was a minor league baseball player. My mother walked out on us when I was 3 years old and my dad turned to his parents, Alan and Margaret to help in raising me.  
Over the course of my life he has made decisions that have been questioned by those around us. He became an FBI agent and for a while I lived with my grandparents and my uncle. My grandfather never truly understood how my dad could abandon me like that and he expected me to feel the same, although I never did. I missed him terribly while he was working in fugitive recovery but even as young as 10 I understood why. He wanted me to have role models who chased after what they wanted. He wanted me to see that it was possible to be more than one thing. Just because he was a father, didn’t mean he couldn’t be the best agent he could.  
I’ve never resented the time he spent away from me; in fact I’m greatful for it. The relationships I formed with my grandparents are something I will cherish my entire life, and the time I spent with my uncle, Charlie, has directly affected my life.  
Charlie was a child prodigy, a math genius and I used to spend days on end sitting out in the garage with him while he worked on his algorithms. We would coexist out in that garage in comfortable silence for hours at a time. Neither of us felt the need to fill the silence with unnecessary words and I was content to just sit and watch him work. Occasionally he would get stuck and it would help him to talk me through his process. For the most part I didn’t understand any of it but as I got older he started explaining more and more and it was these days we spent together that fed my love for maths.  
It was all these things that led me to be who and where I was that late September afternoon, when I met Colby. I had recently begun studying at CalSci, the college where Charlie was a tenured professor, and I was just leaving the FBI building in downtown LA after having lunch with dad. I was rushing to get to a lecture when I burst out of the elevator into the lobby and crashed straight into him. He was dressed in a dark blue suit and held himself with a posture that I instantly recognised as ex-military. He reached out a hand to steady me before I could fall and in that moment I thought I had fallen into the pages of a cliché romance novel. He greeted me with an endearing southern accent and I knew I was in trouble the moment he smiled. We exchanged numbers and three days later we had our first date at a quiet and intimate little restaurant.  
Those first few weeks flew by so quickly. He was working often, something I was used to living with dad, and I was constantly in lectures or studying. We had dinner a few times, but would talk on the phone or text back and forth for hours, late into the night, about everything and nothing. I knew that Colby was an agent fresh out of Quantico and he knew that my dad worked with the bureau but somehow in all the talking neither of us made the connection. That was until one day about a month after we met.  
Colby’s phone rang in the early hours of the morning which wasn’t unusual and before he left to head to the crime scene I kissed him goodbye and told him to be safe before falling back to sleep. When I woke again in the morning I let myself out of his apartment and made my way to CalSci for my morning classes. I was in one of Charlie’s seminars when Dad arrived and pulled Charlie aside for help on a case involving set theory. I had proven myself in the previous year to have a highly intelligent grasp of set theory so after dismissing the rest of the class Charlie asked me to accompany him to the FBI to assist. I had received my security clearance earlier in the year once I turned 18, so it was no problem for me to work alongside him on cases. Charlie and I began working with the data immediately after arriving at the bureau and soon we had something to assist with the case. I remember leaving the room to get dad to tell him we had found something and running into Colby in the hallway.  
“Hayles,” he greeted me in surprise, “Are you visiting you’re dad?”  
“Umm not exactly,” I responded, as I saw dad walking up behind Colby.  
“Hey squirt, you guys having any luck in there?” he asked me casually as he approached us. He gave Colby a nod in greeting before turning his attention back to me.  
“Uh, yeah, we, uh, we think we found something,” I stammered, watching apprehensively the way Colby’s gaze was flicking between dad and me with dawning apprehension.  
“That’s great!” Dad exclaimed, oblivious to the internal panic slowly growing within me.  
“Colby, grab David and Megan and tell him Charlie and Hayley have found something,” he continued and Colby walked away as dad threw his arm around my shoulders and steered me back to the conference room Charlie and I had been set up in.  
“You ok?” dad asked casually as we walked, “you seem a bit pale.”  
“What?” I coughed, “yeah, no, I’m fine.”  
‘Real smooth, idiot’ I thought to myself.

It was hours later that Colby and I managed to find a moment to talk without being overheard.  
“Don’s your dad? Why didn’t you say anything?” Colby whispered forcefully the moment we were alone.  
“He’s your boss? You didn’t think to mention THAT?” I responded, just as forcefully.  
“I didn’t think it was relevant,” he bit back.  
“And neither did I!” I responded, “Obviously.”  
“Jesus Christ I can’t believe I’m sleeping with my bosses barely legal daughter,” he sighed, dragging the palm of his hand down the length of his face.  
“Oh gee, thanks for that,” I spat out bitterly and turned to leave.  
“Shit, I didn’t mean it like that,” he said in a rush as he grabbed my forearm to stop me walking away, “Hayley, I don’t regret being with you, I’m just saying it’s far from an ideal situation.”  
I’d sighed and nodded.  
“I know, god he’s gonna freak,” I sighed.  
“So what are we gonna do?”  
“I have to be the one to tell him,” I said, “just not right now. Not while he’s in the middle of a case.”  
We agreed to wait until after the case, but of course I was so terrified of telling my dad that I was dating a man 12 years older than me, a man who also happened to be one of his agents, that I put it off for almost two weeks. And then I never had to tell him at all because he found out in the worst way possible. 

It was around 8 o’clock on a Friday evening and I was curled up on the couch with Colby watching a movie when the doorbell rang.  
“That’ll be the pizza,” Colby said as he stood up and through on a worn out t-shirt on match the sweatpants hanging loosely from his hips.  
“Hayles, can you grab my wallet it’s on the bench,” he called over his shoulder as he unlocked the door. “Sure, “ I smiled as I jumped up and sauntered over to the kitchen, and that is how it was that I was standing beside the kitchen bench, wearing only one of Colby’s oversized t-shirts, in full view of the door when Colby opened it.  
“Poker?” David asked when the door opened, as my dad held up a 6 pack of beers in each hand. Their smiles froze on their faces when the saw me standing in the kitchen and the blood drained from my face as David followed on in the same breath, “Holy Shit!”  
Both dad and I stood still staring at each other in shock and it was me that broke the lengthening silence.  
“Dad?” I gasped.  
When he didn’t respond straight away, Colby spoke up.  
“Don, I can explain.”  
It was those four words that snapped dad out of his shock.  
“Don’t!” he told Colby without his gaze ever leaving me, “Hayley get your clothes and wait for me at the car.”  
“Dad! Please,” I pleaded.  
“NOW!” he yelled.  
I flinched in response to his tone and quickly scurried to the bedroom and pulled on my jeans and threw one of Colby’s jumpers over my head as I scooped up my shoes and handbag into my arms and returned back to the apartment’s entry way to find that David had already left. Dad was furious, yelling at Colby in a way I’d only ever seen him get with criminals. It chilled me and tears began streaming down my face as I rushed to stand between them.  
“She’s just a kid!” he screamed.  
“Stop it!” I sobbed.  
“Hayley I told you to wait for me at the car,” he said looking away from Colby long enough to establish that I was now fully clothed before returning his attention to Colby.  
“NO! I’m not going to let you guys fight!” I cried at him.  
“Hayley go,” Colby said quietly.  
“You shut your mouth!” Dad yelled, “HAYLEY GRACE EPPES LEAVE! NOW!”  
I reacted to his words like I’d been slapped. He’d never raised his voice at me like that before and judging by his expression it was clear he could see the fear I felt in that moment written across my face. I staggered backwards and curled into Colby’s side. He instantly raised his arms to hold me to him protectively.  
Either my reaction or Colby’s snapped dad out of his anger. I watched as his shoulders slumped and with a much quieter voice he asked me, “How long?”  
“A little over 6 weeks,” Colby offered solemnly.  
As his face twinged at Colby’s confession, instantly my fear disappeared and I stepped out of Colby’s arms and crossed half the distance between the two men before I stopped.  
“He didn’t know dad” I pleaded, “He didn’t know I was your daughter until that case I helped with a few weeks ago.”  
I was still sobbing quietly as dad stood up straighter and looked me in the eye.  
“We’ve never had any secrets Hayley,” he said, the note of betrayal clear in his voice, “Not ever.”  
Before I could respond he turned and left the apartment, closing the door behind him.

 

No one heard from Don Eppes for five days after he walked out of Colby’s apartment. He took some personal days from work and disappeared. He wasn’t at our apartment, he didn’t show up at Charlie and Grandpa’s house and his phone went straight to voicemail. I blamed myself. I had hurt the person who mattered most to me and spent those five days curled up in our empty apartment waiting for him to come home. I didn’t go to classes and I ignored everyone’s calls including Colby’s.  
By the second day Colby turned up at my door and refused to leave until I let him in.  
“I’ll sleep out here in the hallway if I have to Hayley,” he called through the closed door, “The neighbours are going to hate you.”  
I’d opened the door shortly after that and after a quick look at my tear streaked face he stepped into the apartment and pulled me to his chest in a tight embrace.


End file.
